"We need to do away with low-value university degrees." Who said that and when? It could have been Rishi Sunak last October. Or Sunak last July. Or Sunak the year before last August. Or Nadim Zahavi five months earlier. Or Michelle Donelan in November 2020. Or Gavin Williamson in May 2020. Or Damian Hinds the year before. Or Sam Jima in 2018. Or Jo Johnson in 2017. And even Labour's Margaret Hodge more than 20 years ago.
However, this time it was Sunak in the campaign last week. "Some university degrees fail young people," he told reporters. Approximately one in five students "would be better off financially" if they had not gone to university, while "one in three graduates works in a job that does not require a degree". Sunak promised to abolish "misleading diplomas" and replace them with 100.000 apprenticeship places.
This discussion has been heated so many times that it has become completely muddled. And yet politicians continue to put it back on the table, convinced that they are showing understanding for the people's alleged aversion to the "university-educated liberal elite".
But what is a "low value" degree? Few politicians clamoring about "deceptive degree programs" or "Mickey Mouse degrees" are prepared to specify which ones they intend to shut down. Clearly, some degree programs are better than others. But defining the value of a course - for whom and for what purposes - is not an easy task.
For many politicians (and not just in this government), the value of a degree is measured primarily by metrics such as the proportion of students who fail to complete their studies and those who find highly skilled, well-paid jobs. Humanities or media studies are often considered of low value because their economic reward is small compared to the so-called. stem programs (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), either in terms of economic development or personal compensation.
The irony, however, is that computer science, business and administrative studies, and engineering and technology have the highest university dropout rates. They are the lowest, except for medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine, in language, history and philosophy studies. Stereotypes and reality do not necessarily match.
When it comes to apprenticeships, the facts are again at odds with the narrative. For a government that so glorifies apprenticeships, it is striking that the number of those becoming apprentices has fallen from 509.400 in 2015/16. to 337.100 in 2022/23, the decline being particularly pronounced among young people. Almost half of all those starting to learn the trade are now over 25, a percentage that has risen in recent years.
Only 54% of apprentices successfully completed training and assessment in the 2022/23 school year. year, while almost half gave up due to the poor quality of training. As one report noted: "If college or university students were to drop out in such large numbers or make similar complaints, it would be a national scandal."
The report also found that one in five apprentices and more than a quarter of those at entry level had received "no on-the-job training from their employer" at all. Apprentices are "often treated as workers rather than pupils", forced to work in "low-skilled positions, while being paid far less than the national minimum wage". The report concludes that "many current 'apprenticeships' have no connection to real occupations, while some employers make up fake job titles to get apprenticeship subsidies". You could say that these are "Mickey Mouse crafts", although they will not cause the fury of ministers or shocking headlines in To the Telegraph or The Daily Mail.
Apprenticeships are extremely important as they provide a valuable option for millions of people, and should receive appropriate government attention. Instead, politicians prefer to cause a moral panic over poor quality university courses, while largely ignoring the lack of quality in many trades.
Also often ignored is the impact of social class on student experiences and outcomes. An analysis last year showed that students who were eligible for free school meals, which is an indicator of poverty, were less likely to graduate and less likely to get good grades, find a good job or go on to further study. Improving the quality of courses generally does not address these inequalities.
In 2017, the Government introduced the Teaching Excellence Framework, a rating system that awards universities gold, silver and bronze designations based on statistics on "student experience and outcomes". However, analysis reveals that "those with a gold rating recruit far fewer students with school meal entitlements". They also show that whether a course is awarded gold, silver or bronze accreditation has little effect on inequality in outcomes. The "cynical interpretation" of the results, the analysis concludes, is that universities "that want to secure the highest recognition for teaching excellence should focus on recruiting as few students as possible from poor backgrounds."
Underlying all this is the fact that policies are colonized by the idea that education should be treated as valuable primarily because of its economic benefits, whether personal or national. It is a perspective that has turned universities into businesses, students into consumers, and knowledge into a commodity. The notion of learning as good in itself, as a way to improve the quality of our lives, is now ridiculed as hopelessly naive, or the privilege of elite students.
An instrumentalist view of education is often presented as a means of improving working-class students by equipping them for the labor market. In reality, it tells students that they should study what suits their current situation. As Marta Gil noted last year, many politicians and commentators value university education as a means "to uplift human lives and feed the soul, regardless of labor market benefits" - but only for a certain class of people. "Students to whom we tend to apply a financial - rather than a spiritual - calculus when it comes to higher education tend to be those from poorer backgrounds."
For the wealthy, education means enriching the soul. For working-class students, it is primarily seen as a route to the labor market. They are seen as people who benefit from "professional" learning. As education analyst Jim Dickinson, associate editor of the Higher Education Platform, notes WONKHE: "When we talk about 'low value' degree programs, isn't there a danger that we actually mean 'low value students'?"
(The Guardian; Peščanik.net; translation: M. Jovanović)
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